


Happy Holidays 1965

by Alistra (ALeaseInWonderland)



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Coda, F/M, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28241463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALeaseInWonderland/pseuds/Alistra
Summary: It's December in 1965 and Natasha Romanoff is faced with the most difficult mission of her career so far: finding an adequate Christmas gift for Clint Barton that says: "I have enjoyed the past year-and-a-half of our professional partnership, now please rip my clothes off and ravish me."In a, you know, tasteful way.(A coda to the 2020 Marvel Big BangBe Seeing You, which it is not necessary to have read in advance.)
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	Happy Holidays 1965

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlphaFlyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaFlyer/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Be Seeing You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27580970) by [Alistra (ALeaseInWonderland)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALeaseInWonderland/pseuds/Alistra), [AlphaFlyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaFlyer/pseuds/AlphaFlyer). 



> I had a great time writing my first ever Big Bang with you, AlphaFlyer - gratuitous shoutout to the [gorgeous ART and VIDEO](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635027) for it by Inkvoices, because urgh, EVERYBODY should see that! 
> 
> When I saw be_compromised's Secret Santa challenge, I immediately thought if I were to be assigned to write for you, this is the fic I would be writing. But, you know, you don't choose who to write for. 
> 
> Happy (early) Christmas, Alpha, I hope you enjoy this. xxx
> 
> Fastest and most spontaneous beta by gsparkle, who is also the best cheerleader in the world. Thank you. <3

Time flies when you're covertly meddling in international affairs. Months have passed since Russian spy Natasha Romanoff and American assassin Clint Barton were abducted from opposite ends of the world and thrown into a mysterious secret organization's cheerfully coloured model village of doom. Intelligence indicates that their captors' nebulous and sinister plans have been successfully thwarted, the premises now cleansed of its previous purpose and in the process of being turned into an innocuous holiday destination serving to financially support some of the less overt activities of S.H.I.E.L.D.

It's this second organization that the two unlikely allies from either side of the Iron Curtain now find themselves working for, already esteemed agents after a merely perfunctory probational period. Together, as STRIKE Team Delta, or apart, as Hawkeye and the Black Widow, they've been distinguishing themselves more and more as some of the best operatives S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever had on its payroll. By the time Christmas 1964 comes and goes, Clint is on a critical and highly classified job concerning medical experimentation on humans near Latveria while Natasha is deeply undercover in Estonia, infiltrating an international weapons cartel.

Despite, or maybe exactly _because_ they ended up as close partners, Natasha has resolutely squashed the delicate blossom of romantic notions she entertained before and during their escape. After all, it has become evident right away that their different backgrounds and talents compliment each other most favourably, and there is no faster way to wreck a professional partnership than to add too much interpersonal relations into the mix.

Natasha is very aware of this in theory and a confident master of her emotions, so it isn't an issue at all for her to follow the simple self-set instructions of detached professionalism.

Until Hawkeye is fitted with a revised set of field gear around spring, almost exactly a year into their partnership.

"Are you sure that's all there is to it?" Natasha asks, upending an empty cardboard box and ignoring the evil eye their assigned V.I.C.E.S. _(Valued Individual Clothing and Equipment Seamstress)_ shoots her. (Their employers have as much an obsession with acronyms as their late kidnappers had with stripes.)

Clint stretches his bare arms out from the glorified vest that somebody has deemed his new tactical outfit. A few thick veins stand out amidst the hair on his tanned forearms as he flexes and stretches like a cat. A big cat. A lion, maybe.

Natasha audibly swallows against a mouth gone very dry, very quickly.

"Yeah, I asked them to leave off the sleeves, 'cause the buckles on the old ones kept catching on my bowstring," he replies easily, getting acquainted with his new threads by dropping into a few squats that would make accomplished Cossack dancers weep with joy. Natasha fails to overlook the way the stretchy fabric bulges around the strong muscles in his thighs. And in other places.

"You'll catch a cold," she says, the mental image of his broad chest breaking out in goosebumps not helping in the least.

"Naaah," he drawls, contorting to check out his ass in the mirror before starting on the snaps and buttons to change back into his civvies. "You know I run hot." He winks at the V.I.C.E.S. who simpers and giggles, and Natasha rolls her eyes.

That she stays until he's put his shirt back on is purely coincidental.

~*~

So maybe Natasha has been aware from the moment they first met that her partner is an objectively attractive man, but that is only her ingrained observational skill and says nothing about her personal opinion. What of it, if her partner's smirk makes her feel all funny and warm inside? If anything, she's been lacking friends before she joined this new gig, so to take more note of positive interactions is only healthy. Friendship is good. A dependable partner in the field so much more so.

Besides, Clint habitually flirts with anything that moves -sometimes even _men!-_ so that he does it to her doesn't mean a thing.

It's right until the joint mission to the Bahamas that Natasha manages to keep lying to herself this way. Like hormonal youths under the watchful eyes of a chaperone, the entire trip consists of Team Delta acting like honeymooners dying to get each other alone, behaving just barely this side of respectable for company. Nobody thinks twice about it when they steal away, much less guesses they use the unobserved time to successfully gather evidence to link a small group of ambitious local traffickers to a heinous world-spanning organization. The mission is a success, aided -among other things- by Natasha taking a lot of very cold showers.

By the time they are dispatched to Miami during swimsuit season, Natasha has resigned herself to the fact that she _wants_ Clint. Wants him in an entirely inadvisable way that involves her teeth on the eternally tense stretch of skin between his neck and the shoulder of his bow arm. It's just a single moment of weakness that has her imagining him above her one night. Smiling down, reaching for her, _looking_ at her with that mix of admiration and amusement and that's it, she's coming with an intensity that leaves her impressed and embarrassed in equal measures.

An experienced master of self-restraint, she manages to keep even this new level of guilty pleasures to herself for the following months.

But then, much earlier than is reasonable, Christmas looms.

Much like most of the years that preceded it, celebrating a holiday couldn't have been further from Natasha's mind, but as she's more than surprised to learn: Clint Barton _loves_ Christmas.

He loves everything _about_ Christmas.

Clint starts humming carols under his breath during stake-outs by late October. Despite his declared fondness for Dylan, by the time the first decorations come out, so does his Bing Crosby record, wobbling and warbling for how often he's played it. There is nothing rational about how much he treasures the stack of paper envelopes containing the silvery lametta he once bought on Nuremberg's famous Christmas market; nor about the way he painstakingly flattens and returns every strand to its wrapping at the end of the season.

Given enough spare time, he even _bakes._

And Natasha... she doesn't hate it.

Well, apart from the baking. The baking she could well do without, since its blackened results are probably even more of a health hazard than the lead tinsel. But seeing the usually so controlled and cynical agent turned into the spirit of Christmas present is strangely endearing. In general, there's an alarming amount of things about him that she's started to find charming.

After the last guests have left his apartment late on the night before Christmas, Natasha flops down on the couch next to Clint. Curling her legs under her to keep the red silk of her chinese sheath dress riding up inappropriately, she lets her shoulder bump against his companionably.

"Did you enjoy your Christmas party?" she asks.

"I did," Clint replies. "Everybody else did too, don't you think?"

Natasha hums in agreement, absently massaging her toes to rub some feeling back into them after a long day in slingback kitten heels.

"And now Christmas is as good as over again," he adds with an almost wistful expression.

"But isn't tomorrow the only actual Christmas holiday?" she asks, turning to better read his face.

"Sure, but everybody goes to visit their families now. So for people like us, the sociable part is over." He looks so melancholy all of a sudden that Natasha takes his hand, feeling his small grateful smile glancing off her like physical warmth. It's not lost on her that both of them prefer to watch their fingers link together rather than maintain eye contact.

"When I was young..." Clint quietly says after a beat, biting his lip, "the holidays weren't anything to look forward to."

Over by the credenza, the record player winds down, the pick-up head returning to its rest with an audible click. In the sudden silence, Clint's thumb draws small circles on the back of Natasha's hand.

"On Christmas day, my Dad would tell stories about his time in the War and get into the bottle while we were still in our pajamas. At the same time my Mum faked good cheer and holiday spirit with downright painful dedication. My brother and I'd be walking on eggshells all day 'cause sooner or later the whole charade inevitably collapsed into tears and violence." He's quiet for a long moment, lips twitching with a determined frown he visibly tries to fight back. His hand tightens around Natasha's and she lets it, pressing in against his side a little closer in an attempt to comfort him without words. He notices, of course he does, and when his eyes turn on her, they don't appear all that faraway and sad anymore. The confidence and cheeky smile she knows so well are back in place and when he grins at her in that private way of his, like he's letting her in on a secret joke, Natasha looks away to stop herself from blushing.

"That was a long time ago though," he says, giving her hand another gentle squeeze before returning to drawing soothing circles. "These days I define my holiday experience. One piece of tinsel at a time."

"How can you stay so optimistic after all that you've seen?" Natasha can't help but ask, the question burning under her nails from the moment she first got to know the man behind the agent; what feels like half a lifetime ago.

"Can't let the past define me, can I? There's no changing what happened, so the best I can do to prove none of that shit has power over me is to live my best life. Do a job that makes a difference. Try to be a better man than my father was. And along the way enjoy the hell out of Christmas."

Natasha sees the moment his face falls, and it takes her a slow second to realize it's in reaction to whatever he's read in her own expression.

"Hey," he says with soft concern, cupping her jaw with his free hand.

Come morning, there will be a million ways in which Natasha rationalizes what happens next, but for the moment, her carefully crafted resolve shatters under the tender touch of his palm.

"Will you help me make some new traditions?" she whispers, hardly recognizing the tremor to her voice.

Clint nods solemnly, reaching around to smoothly pull her sideways into his lap and Natasha goes gratefully, equal parts afraid and excited as her hands come to rest on the satin lapels of his dinner jacket.

"I hope you know I'll always be here for you, Nat. But please: don't do this unless you're sure, because-" he whispers back, close enough to share a breath and to see the nerves betrayed by the pulse at his temple. Natasha cuts him off with a finger to the soft swell of his lips, swallowing hard against the sudden lump in her throat.

"I've never been so sure of anything in my life, Clint," she confesses almost inaudibly and attempting to alleviate the mood just a tiny bit, adds, "Merry Christmas..." before sealing her lips to his.


End file.
